


Mistake Salt for Sugar

by the_rck



Category: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Emotional Manipulation, Fictional Religion & Theology, Marriage of Convenience, Multi, Politics, Quote: The Force works in mysterious ways, Rituals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-13 09:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13567755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: “I’m not asking who the father is,” the Chancellor said. “It doesn’t matter, and I won’t expect you to-- Well, name only, but I can give you that much, a name for the child. I’m sure the Queen would be happy to have my wife as Senator for Naboo.” His eyes moved slightly sideways from her face.He knows.She couldn’t have explained how she knew, and she suspected that Anakin wouldn’t believe her. Anakin was too certain that no one had noticed their... connection.“You’d be safer, Padme,” Anakin said.





	Mistake Salt for Sugar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AceQueenKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/gifts).



> Title from Rupi Kaur's book of poetry, Milk and Honey.
> 
> Thanks to thedevilchicken for brainstorming.

“It will be so simple, my dear.” Chancellor Palpatine pressed Padme’s hand between his as they stood beside his desk. “A lack of family has long been a sorrow to me.”

Padme had to stop herself from pulling her hand from his and taking several steps backward. For a moment, she thought she saw nothing in his face but darkness surrounded by teeth. Pointed teeth. She steadied herself and put on the unrevealing facial expression she had worn so often as Queen. 

She’d simply seen the shadow cast on his face by the light from the window at his back. She was tired. Only that. She closed her eyes for a moment. She needed more sleep now than she had, and she wasn’t getting it. “I’m honored, Chancellor, but--”

At least the only witness to the conversation was Anakin. The Chancellor had sent away his own people, saying that, if he wasn’t safe with his own world’s senator and a Jedi Knight, he wasn’t safe anywhere.

“It would be a step for your political career.” The Chancellor smiled. “Imagine extending your influence that way.”

Padme shifted her gaze to focus on the scene outside the window rather than on the Chancellor’s face. The vehicles flying past moved rapidly enough that none of them loomed. “I’m happy serving Naboo.” Normally, Padme would have found Anakin’s presence behind her reassuring, but right at that moment, she felt that he was blocking her retreat. Not that she had a reason to flee. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I--”

If Padme actually had reason to fear, Anakin would have already gotten her to the exit. What harm could come to her in Chancellor Palpatine’s office?

“I’m not asking who the father is,” the Chancellor said. “It doesn’t matter, and I won’t expect you to-- Well, name only, but I can give you that much, a name for the child. I’m sure the Queen would be happy to have my wife as Senator for Naboo, even with the arrival of the child so soon after the wedding.” His eyes moved slightly sideways from her face.

 _He knows._ She couldn’t have explained how she knew, and she suspected that Anakin wouldn’t believe her. Anakin was too certain that no one had noticed their... connection.

“You’d be safer, Padme,” Anakin said. 

She recognized his tone. It was the voice he used when he wanted her to hear something that couldn’t be discreetly said. In this case, she knew, he wanted her to remember the nightmares he’d been having. He wanted her to remember that he’d been right about his mother.

She did. She just also remembered that self-fulfilling prophecies existed. Her political instincts were as finely tuned as Anakin’s Force sense, and she knew that, if she said yes, her political effectiveness would end as surely as it would when it became impossible to hide her pregnancy, just for different reasons. Open dissent between her and her husband would be as unacceptable back home as her bearing a child out of wedlock, and a Chancellor from Naboo would be less easily replaced than a senator.

The Queen could appoint anyone at all as senator. Appointing a Chancellor took the Senate, and Sheev Palpatine had made himself Chancellor for life, no term limits. The wife of the Chancellor might have a different sort of power than the Senator from Naboo. Maybe--

But Padme was already married.

Padme also knew what Anakin had chosen to ignore-- how many of Padme’s political maneuvers ended up being in opposition to policies Chancellor Palpatine supported, either openly or covertly. Mostly covertly, though, which was probably why Anakin could overlook it.

Had Anakin told the Chancellor about the pregnancy or had the Chancellor guessed? Had someone else revealed the secret? Too many people might have, but Anakin was the one who trusted the Chancellor.

“I need time to think,” she said. “Please.”

“Of course, my dear.” The Chancellor finally released her hand and stepped back. “It’s not as if there’s a rush. It’s simply-- I can offer protection, especially should you… want more children. I-- That option is closed to me.”

She almost believed his expression of sorrow, but she’d seen it before. She’d also put on similar expressions at times when she felt quite otherwise.

But Anakin considered him a friend, and Chancellor Palpatine really was, so far as she knew, childless. He’d been married. At least, she thought she remembered him having had a wife when she was Queen. Padme simply couldn’t remember the woman’s name or face or… He had been married, hadn’t he? Maybe he had wanted-- did still want-- children?

It was possible. Especially if he wanted to establish some sort of dynasty. Padme felt a chill but didn’t let her body respond to it.

She had trusted him, once, when he was Senator Palpatine, and he’d come through with a strategy. Politics were changeable. He might become the man he had been. He might if she had influence and used it.

He also might not.

And she wouldn’t sever the bond of her marriage to Anakin in order to be legally bound to someone else-- anyone else-- with Anakin… on the side. If she married someone else, Anakin would never be father to his child, neither legally nor by being reliably present.

As long as he was a Jedi, as long as the war continued, he couldn’t anyway. He also might die any time, leaving her alone to cope with-- everything.

Padme had been keeping that fear-- the fear of having to cope alone-- at bay by focusing on immediate things, but she knew from years of experience that doing that wouldn’t keep what had been the future from becoming now.

*****

Later, when she and Anakin were alone together, sitting on the bench on the roof over her apartment, Padme realized that she should have known that Anakin’s views on marriage would be more flexible than what she’d grown up with.

“It’s… not a common arrangement, but it did happen on Tatooine.” Anakin’s expression was a combination of pleading and fear. “Sometimes, it’s not safe-- for the mother or the children-- if other people know who the child’s father is or someone else can offer better status-- freedom even-- for the children. It’s… bad to be the child of a free woman and slave. Someone has to pay the slave’s owner for their… portion of the child.” He looked unhappy, and Padme didn’t dare ask what happened if no payment was made. “Unless the mother is married to someone who is also free. Genetic testing for paternity… isn’t legal on Tatooine because it might embarrass the wrong people.”

Anakin didn’t often talk about Tatooine and the life he’d led there, but Padme had noticed habits that she’d only gradually realized were leftovers from his childhood. He wouldn’t share water with someone he didn’t trust, not pure water anyway. When he made tea for certain Jedi masters, he added a little salt, not enough to taste, just enough that he wasn’t using pure water. When he made tea for some of Padme’s colleagues-- many of Padme’s colleagues-- he did the same. 

When making tea for friends or for masters he respected, Anakin took extra steps to filter the water. Sometimes, he mouthed words over it and then looked up as if embarrassed to be caught in superstition. The words didn’t make the water any purer. Anakin knew that, but it mattered anyway.

Salt offered separately was necessary and courteous. Salt in water was a denial of connection.

At some point, she’d realized that his need to be busy wasn’t a quirk of his mind. It was an ingrained and very thoroughly learned response to the risk of being accused of and punished for idleness.

“There’s a ceremony,” Anakin said. “One for all three of us. I can talk to the Chancellor. He’s a good man. He’ll understand.”

“Anakin--” Padme studied his face and realized that he wasn’t going to bend on this.

“Just until the war ends. Please.” He pulled her in against his chest. “The ceremony on Naboo was for our hearts and for your gods. There isn’t even a record of it.”

She had to admit that he was right about that much. “Let me sleep on it,” she told him, but they both already knew. She’d long ago lost the ability to tell Anakin no on something like this. She’d probably buried it on Tatooine with Shmi, the woman she’d met and spoken to but hadn’t actually understood. Padme met Shmi again every time Anakin smiled at her. 

Shmi had sent Anakin to the Jedi because it was better for Anakin than life as a slave. She had given up the loving presence of her son, and neither Padme nor Anakin knew what Shmi’s life had been like thereafter. As a teenager, even as one who was Queen of Naboo, Padme hadn’t understood the enormity of that sacrifice.

Until she met Anakin and watched his struggles, Padme had never thought about where Jedi came from or that they all must have parents. Jedi simply appeared as padawans and became knights and masters and did what was necessary to hold everything together. They weren’t droids or clones, but they weren’t people either.

Had Qui-Gon bothered explaining that part to Shmi or had he thought that it didn’t matter?

The wife of Sheev Palpatine-- Chancellor or not-- would be in a much better position to justify keeping her child from the Jedi. Padme suspected that the social pressure on her to give up an embarrassing and inconvenient child would be immense, and she’d never worked at any sort of job that wasn’t political. She tried to imagine herself, baby in her arms, applying for a job on a freighter or as clerk in a shop or… as anything that wasn’t connected to government.

She probably could. She likely would.

She’d lose almost all of her time with Anakin that way but trying to see him regularly would also be hard if she went back to Naboo. Her status as a senator was the main reason they had managed as much as they had.

“I don’t want to give you up,” Padme told her husband.

“For you to live, I would,” Anakin replied. “But… I will talk to the Chancellor. He… He can afford the best medical care. He has-- Schools. Bodyguards. Clothing. I can’t-- I don’t--”

“Oh, Ani.” Padme pulled him in close.

“A name, Padme. He could give our baby a name. I can’t do that.”

She held him, and neither of them spoke for quite a long time. Padme fixed her eyes on one of the planters. It held flowers from Naboo. She wasn’t supposed to know that those flowers were replaced every week because the plants couldn’t survive much longer than that on Coruscant. She pretended she didn’t know because, if she admitted it, she’d have to give up that piece of home, too.

“I have money,” she told Anakin at last. “If that will help.” Maybe the gods on Tatooine really did bless such unions. Maybe her own gods would understand.

Maybe that didn’t matter next to Anakin’s pain.

*****

Padme was a little surprised that Chancellor Palpatine had been willing to travel to Tatooine, travel secretly no less, in order to perform a ritual that mattered to Anakin much more than to Padme or to the Chancellor himself. _Sheev. He says I must call him Sheev now that we’re betrothed._

The betrothal had simply required a little paperwork and a private message to the Queen. The ritual on Tatooine sounded simple apart from the part about explaining why they were there if anyone noticed. The legal wedding would be an ordeal, of course, but they had time before they had to be on Naboo.

And none of the three of them had to do anything much to prepare beforehand. Anakin just had to supervise security. He’d prefer that to being on display.

Anakin went to Tatooine first. He said there were things he had to find for the ceremony. “Only the best,” he said just before he left. He kissed her and put a hand on her abdomen. “It has to be _right_. Every detail.”

She smiled at him. She still had reservations, but Anakin was so happy that she was never going to tell him that she was afraid. Even when the war ended, Padme would be married to someone who wasn’t Anakin. Extricating herself from that, even if her husband was willing, would be politically difficult. If he was unwilling… Well, it was a gamble. In a divorce, she might lose her child-- or children-- as well as her office and status.

She supposed that the arrangement meant that Anakin could continue as a Jedi as long as he wanted to. Maybe he could make some changes. He’d like that part, too.

The Promise Ritual had to be held underground. Setting that up when none of them lived on Tatooine was, according to Anakin, the hardest part. “Most of the rest just takes time and money. The people who have… appropriate space… are pretty cautious about who knows, and I’ve been gone a long time. I don’t know the people who know the people, not any more.” He shrugged. “I still know the desert. The pilgrimage will be easy enough, a day there, a day back. Well, a night. I’m not walking that in the sun, not all of it anyway. Some of it has to be.”

Padme didn’t understand any of it, but it was important to Anakin. For something this important to Anakin, she would sacrifice dignity, power, anything except promises already made. All he asked was that she be there and that she be sure to bring Threepio.

“He and Artoo will have to stand in for my family. My mother--” He shook his head. “Anyone else I know well enough…”

Anyone else, he either couldn’t find or was someone who’d have to choose between Anakin and obedience to the Council.

“Should I bring someone?” She assumed that the-- _Sheev_ \-- had already been told what he needed to do.

“You can, but…” He hesitated. “I’m the only one who has to have a witness.”

She heard a great deal there that he didn’t say. He was the one with no legal claim on the child or on the relationship. He was the one offering the greatest trust.

“If you’d rather not a droid,” he went on, “I can ask Cliegg Lars or his son, but… I don’t know them. I don’t know how my mother felt about them, not from her, not from watching them together. They’re only technically kin.”

“Threepio and Artoo will be fine.” She’d prefer them to a near stranger, and Artoo probably knew Anakin better than she did. Or than Obi-Wan did. Threepio had spent more years with Anakin’s mother than Anakin had.

*****

Padme wore a veil and a hooded robe when she arrived on Tatooine. It wasn’t likely that anyone seeing her face would recognize her, but, for this visit, she had no reason for her presence, none that would stand up to scrutiny. She trusted her people to keep her secrets, but a stranger on the street? No.

She had to wait two days before Anakin sent her word about where to meet him. That night, she took Threepio to a specific house near the outskirts of Mos Espa. Once there, she knocked on the door and said something about snow on Coruscant. Which was nonsense because it didn’t snow there.

She supposed that was the point.

By the light of a lantern-- one using actual flame with a wick and a lower section holding some sort of liquid fuel-- an old woman escorted her down a flight of stairs and through a cellar filled with what Padme assumed were foodstuffs. The old woman tapped out a rhythm on the wall opposite the stair, and someone on the other side tapped an answering rhythm. After a moment, a door Padme hadn’t noticed before-- in spite of having been looking for it-- opened. The old woman waved Padme forward.

“May there be rain,” the old woman said as Padme stepped through the doorway.

“And the harvest bountiful,” Anakin said from the other side.

Padme thought both unlikely, but she removed her veil and smiled as she descended several more steps to the place where Anakin stood with R2 next to him. She tried not to wonder about Artoo and the stairs.

Threepio clattered after her.

She hoped he didn’t forget her admonition not to speak. She’d explained that it was a solemn occasion and that only the participants should speak. Not the witnesses. Threepio had talked almost non-stop as they explored Mos Espa while they waited to hear from Anakin, but she hadn’t minded that because it meant she didn’t have to be alone with her thoughts.

There were four flickering lamps, like the one the old woman had used, placed around the chamber. Padme found way the light made the walls seem to move sufficiently eerie that it took her several minutes to realize that the background colors on three of the four walls were shades of blue and green that might look like water. _To someone who has never seen that much water._

“This part is just for us,” Anakin said. “The-- He should be here in about fifteen minutes. Arehmi won’t let him down here sooner, so he can’t be early.” He put his arm around her. “Over there--” He waved to the wall that wasn’t blue and green.

The wall was covered with small hand drawn pictures. Some of them might have been flowers. Some were food and other decorative patterns. All were red. Padme had to look at them for a moment before she understood.

“The lamp,” Anakin said, “shows the spot where the names are old enough that us marking on top won’t erase an existing relationship.”

She was never going to tell Anakin how very heartbreaking that wall was. That it had filled once was tragedy. That it was used enough that marking over was routine-- That was beyond her ability to find words.

Anakin drew a spoked wheel. He didn’t explain why, and Padme couldn’t guess. She drew a small flower and tried to make it look like one of those she’d had at their wedding on Naboo. Then Anakin guided her hand so that she pressed her right index finger against the wheel he’d drawn, and he pressed his right index finger against the flower she’d drawn.

“Soul to soul,” he said softly.

“Soul to soul,” she echoed.

His smile told her that she’d guessed right. He was still holding her tightly when they heard the same patterned tapping that the old woman had done when she brought Padme in. Anakin stepped back and moved to the middle of the chamber where he’d been before. He used one foot to tap out the answering rhythm.

Padme could only assume that there was some sort of device for doing that.

When Sheev-- it was getting easier with practice-- entered the room, his escort didn’t say anything, and Anakin didn’t say anything, so Padme assumed she shouldn’t. Anakin smiled, though, so Padme did, too.

Sheev descended the stairs as if he were making an entrance to a formal reception. As he came through the door, he pulled back the hood that shadowed his face, and he took each step with deliberation that announced loudly that he was someone to be taken seriously.

Padme wondered if that was something he could no longer put aside. She couldn’t believe he thought it was appropriate to the occasion.

Once Sheev reached the bottom of the stair, Anakin went to a corner and opened a small trunk. He pulled out a bolt of green cloth then beckoned to Padme.

She went over and took it. It was a bit heavier than she expected, but she couldn’t remember having ever lifted such a thing before.

Sheev came up behind her, and Anakin handed him a small vial that Padme knew, from Anakin’s explanations, contained salt, a plate, and a bag that Padme knew contained food.

Anakin pulled out three glasses and set them on the ground. 

Padme’d have called them goblets, but they were so tiny that the word seemed awkward and much too big. They were clear glass, but the light from the lamps rippled through them in a way that made them look as if they were already full.

Anakin took out a flask and fastened it to his belt where his lightsaber normally hung. Then, he lifted the trunk, turned it over, and set it in the middle of the room.

Sheev put the plate on the trunk as if it were a table. He had to bend almost double for it, but he poured the salt into a pile in the center of the plate and then removed the food from the bag and started breaking it into pieces.

Padme wasn’t sure if the food was dried meat or some sort of lichen or something else entirely. Anakin had told her that not being able to tell was part of the point. The calories, the nutrients, mattered rather than the form they took. She felt awkward just standing there, holding the bolt of green cloth, but she had no place in this part of things.

After Sheev straightened and stepped back, Anakin retrieved the glasses and put them around the plate.

Padme was surprised that Anakin didn’t fill the glasses. Then, she remembered that he’d said that would come near the end.

Anakin straightened and said, “What little I have to offer is yours.” The words marked the beginning of the most formal part of the ceremony. The actions were scripted. The words were… merely constrained, mostly by what each was willing to offer. Anakin bowed to Padme and extended a hand to her. “I would offer more if I could.” He let his hand drop.

Padme’s feet wanted to move, to take her to Anakin, but this was ritual. She knew what was expected of her. She raised her hand toward him then let it drop. “Faith,” she said. She hadn’t known until that moment that that was what she’d ask him for. “Keep faith.”

Anakin smiled as if she’d given him a gift then turned to Sheev. “Protect what I cannot.”

Padme was almost certain there was supposed to be a ‘please’ in there. She also didn’t quite like the shadows around the three of them. She understood that the shadows were part of the point, but she kept thinking that what she was seeing was real. She made herself focus on Sheev. His promises were the ones that mattered here.

Sheev almost bowed, and for just a moment, he looked much larger than he actually was. He turned to Padme. “I promise protection if that be your will. What I have, I will share. My food is yours. My wealth-- such as it is-- is yours. And will be theirs.” He nodded toward her, and they all three knew it as a promise to the child. “No harm that I can prevent shall befall you.” He held out his hand.

Padme shifted the bolt of cloth to her other arm and hesitated. She knew what she was supposed to do, but she couldn’t move. She inhaled deeply and centered herself as well as she could. She raised her free hand toward Sheev and walked toward him. “Share for share,” she said. “Protection for protection. Loyalty for loyalty. Faith for faith.” She must be catching something of Anakin’s feelings about the importance of this ceremony because she’d have sworn she felt power growing around them.

She met Sheev’s eyes and then Anakin’s. “Welcome for welcome,” she said very softly.

Her hand touched Sheev’s, and something clicked into place in her head. She ignored it because looking at it would interrupt the ceremony. “I am not without dowry.” She lifted the shoulder of the arm that carried the cloth. She offered the bolt to him, and he took it. “What I have,” she said, “I will share.” For a moment, she felt as if all of her will were focused on a single thing. “Children belong to themselves.”

One thread cut, and she didn’t know why.

Sheev seemed not to have noticed, and Anakin didn’t respond either, so she supposed it was still within the traditions of what a woman in her position might say.

Sheev took the bolt of cloth from her and put it on the floor in front of her. He helped her to kneel on it. Then, he and Anakin also knelt. Sheev took two fragments of the food, dipped them in the salt, and offered them to Anakin.

Anakin took one and passed it to Padme. He ate the other.

Sheev dipped a third fragment in the salt and ate it.

Padme ate what Anakin had given her. All she tasted was salt. Then, she accepted more, this time directly from Sheev. She ate that, too. She smiled at Sheev and then at Anakin.

Anakin smiled back as if this were all a very good joke they were sharing. “Are you ready?” he asked.

Padme and Anakin both looked at Sheev who smiled and nodded.

Anakin took the flask from his belt and poured water into each of the three glasses. He poured the last three drops from the flask onto the floor. “May there be rain,” he said.

“May there be rain,” Padme and Sheev replied.

The three of them, together, lifted their glasses and sipped. Then Padme passed her glass to Anakin and took Sheev’s as Sheev took Anakin’s. They all sipped again and passed again.

When Padme accepted Anakin’s glass from Sheev, she took a moment to study the water inside. It didn’t look special, but she knew that Anakin had walked for hours to get it. He’d told her that the pilgrimage was an important sign of the biological father’s dedication to the child or children. “For a slave to find an excuse to cover the time for walking to the caves and to find the spring--” He’d shaken his head. “Usually, owners don’t use the explosive until they’re sure you’ve run, and a beating isn’t-- Well, very few people die of that.”

Remembering that, Padme had a momentary urge toward murder. No one should have to live with such matter-of-factness about horrors. She flexed her free hand and reminded herself that capital punishment was a horror, too, and war and… She knew that in her bones.

Anakin raised his glass, and Padme realized that she had missed her cue. She raised her glass and said, “I join willingly.”

Sheev echoed her, and Anakin echoed him. Then, they all three drank what remained in the glasses they held.

The last of the water felt like fire in her throat. She swallowed it because she had swallowed worse things while participating in rituals that mattered to other people. That was part of being a politician.

Still, Anakin should have warned her. For a moment, she wondered what he’d coated the glasses with to achieve the effect at just the right time.

Then she realized that Sheev-- the _Chancellor_ \--was choking. If she and Anakin had poisoned the Chancellor, even accidentally, the word ‘disaster’ didn’t even begin to cover it. She reached toward Anakin only to find him already on his feet and rounding the overturned trunk.

“It takes some people more powerfully than others,” Anakin said as he knelt beside the Chancellor. “It’s a good sign.”

Padme was certain that the first sentence was true and equally certain that the second… wasn’t quite. She could feel Anakin drawing on the Force as he touched the Chancellor. She could feel the Force answering with something close to a burble of amusement.

She’d never felt the Force directly before, and the sensation was beyond confusing. She needed several seconds to understand that she still wasn’t feeling the Force directly. She was feeling what Anakin felt when he touched it.

And what Sheev Palpatine felt when _he_ touched it. Sheev wasn’t supposed to be able to touch the Force, especially not with this level of power.

She watched Anakin give Sheev first aid. _Anakin hasn’t noticed._ She was almost certain that Anakin wouldn’t notice, that he’d laugh if she pointed it out, because his mentor, his friend, the Chancellor would certainly have told him if it were true. Because Sheev Palpatine hiding that fact meant--

Padme couldn’t quite allow her mind to form the word ‘Sith.’

What Anakin took from and gave to the Force wasn’t nearly as different from what Sheev did as it probably ought to be. Neither man had detachment. Neither man had any sort of ethical or moral absolute.

What Padme felt from both of them in other ways was different. Sheev was stable in a way that Anakin wasn’t and might never be, but that stability-- It was cold enough to burn and centered entirely on devouring want.

Sheev answered it with a drive for power, but that wasn’t ever going to sate his appetite, no matter how much he shoveled in, because it wasn’t what he wanted. What he wanted-- She had no more idea than he did, and it likely didn’t matter. It wasn’t family or her or Anakin. He’d have that now, but it wouldn’t satisfy him.

But perhaps family could anchor Anakin and keep him from ending up with Sheev’s horrific sort of stability. If it didn’t, the two of them were going to pull Padme under.

She would not allow that. Could not allow that.

Padme lifted a hand as if the Force were something she could touch that way, as if she could touch it at all. She suspected that whatever had happened to bind them was the Force and that it didn’t care as much about intentions as about what had been said. It was like a treaty where the wording dictated the obligations and limitations. She was trying to remember exactly what each of them had promised when Sheev’s breathing eased and some of the tension went out of Anakin’s shoulders.

She managed to smile at both men when Sheev looked at her. “Congratulations,” she said. “I believe we’ve been blessed.” She was quite certain that he was also running through conditions accepted because his smile in return was a bit more threadbare than it ought to be.

They were all three a bit more married than she had expected and certainly more so than Sheev had expected. She wondered how long he’d have kept her under other circumstances. She was likely to be more trouble than he expected, and he’d wanted Anakin, Anakin and Anakin’s child, not Padme.

She saw the moment when Sheev understood that she knew. She watched him look at Anakin and realize that Anakin still didn’t know. She kept her expression serene as Sheev’s smile deepened.

She wondered how Sheev would feel when he realized that she knew how to hold him to his promises.


End file.
